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jimrandomh comments on Personal Evidence - Superstitions as Rational Beliefs - Less Wrong
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Forget the whole philosophy and meta side of this. If the events you describe really happened, then there is a sneaky, insane and probably dangerous human around. If this were a B-movie horror, you would search the house alone and unarmed, find a concealed door in the "alien geometry" basement room, open it and be ambushed. Tread carefully. If a key goes missing and then reappears, it has been copied. If a previous occupant's possessions turn up mysteriously, then the lurker has been around for awhile. Hidden cameras are a useful tool. In any case, it is dangerous to tip him off that you know, unless you are ready to act (as in, bring in police, conduct a thorough search with special equipment, and change all locks) immediately.
Either that or maybe either OrphanWilde or his sister or someone else close to him really enjoys messing with everyone and making it seem that the house is haunted.
Especially to mess with one of those people intolerant of our beliefs in the supernatural, who always have to go about how this or that can easily be dismissed if only you were rational. How ironical could it be then to get one to believe in a haunted house because it was the rational thing to do given the "evidence"?
That sounds like a restatement of the parent comment, with different connotation.
I meant "someone close to him" in a relationship, not a spatial, sense (so, "other family member or friend he knows about"). Which I guess is still kind of just a different connotation, but I think one worth noticing separately from the "crazy lurker who's been around for a while" hypothesis.
I see. Thanks for clarifying.
Though, the other stuff in the post, and his other comments on the thread, really make it seem to me to be related to the house rather than to him, or his friends.
Heh. There -was- a semi-hidden door in the "alien geometries" room going outside, actually, although it had been boarded up from the other side, and I've since replaced it with well-reinforced masonry. And the original door was spray-painted in red with bizarre symbols. (I'm not making that up. Seriously, imagine this: First, there's a room that doesn't seem to join together properly. Now there's this apparent wooden wall, in a room mostly made of cinderblock walls, covered in weird symbols in red spray paint. The wall swings open if you can get a fingertip grip on the edges of the wood - into a featureless wooden wall behind it. -Nobody- liked going into that room.)
The only way a key retrieval would have been possible is if the sneaky person had reached out from a heating duct and grabbed it. Which is conceivably possible - the ductwork is loose and could be pulled down from the basement.
...considering my girlfriend refused to be in the house for more than a month after I showed her a haiku inspired by the noises inside the walls as being rats with broken necks being thrown down from the attic by a creature living there (the house was -awesome- writing inspiration), I don't think I'll relate that particular explanation.
You could invite some rationalists there. Nice place for a meetup! :D
Eventually only the most rational visitor is left alive.
This is because the most rational person leaves as soon as the first person dies.
The most rational visitor would flee as soon as gunshots erupted from the house next door... (It's... not the nicest neighborhood.)
yeah I want to hang out in/explore this house
Honestly. Let's investigate! OrphanWilde, under which circumstances would it be possible for you to divulge the location of this anomaly?
It's in Lansing, Michigan. Which I suspect would be a -long- drive for most rationalists here.
The frequency of odd events was about once every month or so (including the rather-less-odd events like night terrors or the dream in which I was shot to death), and considerably less frequent (as in, once in two or so years) since I moved into another house and started visiting the house only in preparation to sell it.
Nope. I'm just going to defy you here, since this sort of restatement is occasionally bad. Four different people searched for this key (that you know of >:D ), and I doubt you said to every one of them "don't bother, I searched well enough to exclude me having overlooked it" to each one.